Do you remember when Amgen was a high flier?  That question sprang to mind today as Amgen announced that it was initiating a dividend.  Apparently the first for a major biotech company.  Given the fact that Amgen is among those large companies that possess a large cash hoard this news shouldn’t be surprising.  The company clearly needs to do something to get the stock moving.  A quick glance at a decade-long chart shows the stock price stuck in a rut.  These days Amgen trades more like a utility than a biotech stock.  Two points.  The first is that today’s high fliers, if they are lucky, eventually will become big, staid stocks.  Second, this highlights the continued valuation disparity between high quality large caps and small caps.  In today’s screencast a look at Amgen’s dividend debut.

Items mentioned in the above screencast:

Amgen provides earnings projections.  (WashingtonPost)

Amgen initiates a dividend.  (The Dynamic Dividend)

Amgen key stats.  (YCharts, ibid)

Daily price chart of Amgen (AMGN).  (Finviz)